What better way to spend an evening than marveling at Nicolas Cage’s acting skills in a movie about convicts taking over a plane? Con Air has everything you need – action, one-liners and a star studded cast.

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Cult Classic: Con Air

What better way to spend an evening than marveling at Nicolas Cage’s acting skills in a movie about convicts taking over a plane? Con Air has everything you need – action, one-liners and a star studded cast.

by Genna Patterson

Cage plays Cameron Poe, a US Ranger sent to prison for a murder he commits while trying to defend his pregnant wife from attackers. After 7 long years, he is set for parole. A newly freed man, Poe must take the air transport plane for one last journey before he can be reunited with his ‘hummingbird’ wife and their daughter.

Unfortunately for Poe, the aircraft he is hitching a ride home on is taken over by convicts; lead by Cyrus the Virus – John Malkovich with his cool, quiet intensity as usually expected from this fine actor.

Poe gets involved with the mission to escape when his diabetic friend, Baby-O loses his medication and goes into a coma. Resolving to save his friend, Poe must do whatever it takes to fool the convicts that he is on their side, while communicating with US Marshall Vince Larkin (John Cusack).

Some of the film's fantastic one-liners include, “Put the bunny back in the box”, “There are only two men I trust and one of them aint you” and “Define 'irony': a bunch of idiots dancing around on a plane, to a song made famous by a band that died in a plane crash.”

Expect lots of scenes where Cage looks into the distance in a meaningful way, close-ups of Cage's confused questioning look and nasty snarling as Cage fights his way out of awkward situations. This movie is cheesy goodness, so bad its stinking like a nice blue stilton, full of flavour once you give it a chance.

Possibly Cage's best bad performance of his career. One not to miss.

The director Simon West also has such notable titles under his belt: Lara Croft and The Expendables 2.